The admissions process is fraught with regional inequities. China’s best schools are located in wealthy cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, and those universities allocate larger quotas to local students.

In recent days, fears about shrinking quotas for local students had bubbled up in Jiangsu, one of China’s wealthier provinces, after authorities announced a change in the system. As part of a national scheme to try to boost more equity, provincial authorities said 38,000 slots in Jiangsu universities would be reserved for students from other provinces, including poorer regions such as Guizhou and Guangxi.

The move prompted a firestorm of concern that local students would be hurt in the process. “Jiangsu parents are well-educated, a lot of them are business people who are rich,” said Zhang Weiqi, founder of NextGen Parents, an education-focused social network for parents. “They have high expectations for their kids.” [Source]

The parents were quoted by news website ThePaper.cn as saying that less than 10 per cent of local students in Jiangsu would be enrolled in local key universities while a student from Beijing had about a one in four chance.

They said they felt angry and confused why universities located in the national capital were allowed to reserve more spots for those students with a Beijing hukou, while students in Hubei and in Jiangsu had to make more room for non-local students.

The parents’ concerns were reasonable, according to Huang Wenzheng, a demographer and visiting scholar at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management. The mainland’s college admissions system has long suffered from distortions caused by the residency control system.

Students who want to attent a university away from where they live must often score significantly higher than locals on the general entrance exam, as most schools give preference to residents. [Source]

Hours after thousands of ­parents took to the streets in Nanjing and Wuhan, the Ministry of Education said late on Saturday night that admissions resulting from college entrance exams in all provinces would steadily increase this year.

The statement was aimed at easing parents’ fears that a move to allocate enrolment quotas for non-local students would make it more difficult for their children to find places close to home.

Both the ministry and authorities in Jiangsu and Hubei insisted the quotas were aimed at making tertiary education more equitable and would benefit students from less developed inland provinces.

Zhang Wei, a resident of Wuxi in Jiangsu, said despite the ministry’s reassurances, he remained worried that his son, who takes the college entrance exam next month, might be affected. [Source]